Friends of South Asia'sThird Annual
Literary Eveningand
Joint Celebration of Indian and Pakistani Independence DaysASYMMETRIC WARS : ASYMMETRIC WORLDSSaturday
August 19,
2006, 5pm
Milpitas Library Community Hall40 N Milpitas Blvd, Milpitas, CA 95035
(map, directions)Join local
writers and poets in exploring themes that reflect the life and times we
are living through. And participate in jointly marking India and Pakistan's independence days.

FOSA's third annual
literary evening will feature readings of original works in a variety
of genres and formats - fiction, essays, memoirs, plays and poetry
- in
different South Asian languages as well as English. More info coming soon! Meanwhile, visit the homepage of our Second Annual Literary Evening (Apr 2005) to get a sense of the kinds of writers and works featured.

We will also use the occasion to jointly celebrate Indian and Pakistani
Independence Days, a tradition we have kept alive in the Bay Area since
2003. More info about celebrations from 2005, 2004, and 2003.

THE THEME

View "Call for Submissions" mailer for instructions. Submissions are due by Aug 10, 2006Please mail your submissions to mail [at] friendsofsouthasia.orgRecently, three detainees in Guantanamo committed suicide. This collective suicide is "an act of
asymmetric war directed against us", declared Rear Admiral Harry Harris. Another American official,
Colleen Graffy, in charge of public diplomacy at the State Department, qualified the detainees' gesture
as "a publicity stunt to get attention."

The very existence of prisons in Guantanamo is a violation of
international law. Here, people are imprisoned without charges, declared enemy combatants in secret illegal tribunals, tortured, and held without trials, some for as long as four years.

It is in this context of gross legal, moral and ethical violations
by the world's largestmilitary power that
the term asymmetric war draws our attention. What can be said about the
nature of power where death is described as a "publicity stunt" - where
the deaths of over 2,500 U.S soldiers are barely mourned but
the deaths of over 200,000 Iraqis are not even counted...

Or
where prisoners, en masse, go on a hunger strike and have to be
force-fed? How
would the notion of asymmetric war translate in the contexts of
Palestine and Israel, or the continued insurgency in Iraq? And when is
a suicide a battle cry?

Thus we invite your critical reflections on the notion of asymmetric
wars and the asymmetric world that we live in. Submissions are invited
in all moods and all registers of the human experience, not just war:
Is the battle of sexes an asymmetric war? How about most of the
developing world living on $2/day while Exxon CEO gets a pension
package of $98M? How about Hollywood vs. Bollywood, torture versus
hunger strike,
tanks vs. rocks, Chavez vs. Cheney, Blogs vs. Corporate Media, Coca
Cola vs. safe drinking water or L'Oreal versus Surma?